Chapter Text
His memory kept flashing so many events at once. There was the explosion that knocked him to the ground and covered him in grime, soot, and ash when an interceptor’s strafing run blew up a munitions crate near him. There were countless bombs that exploded all around his unit’s position, instantly killing other soldiers and burning the most unfortunate souls alive. Its shrapnel had penetrated his armor and torn up his back, causing scarlet droplets of his blood to spill onto the gravel below, yet he hardly felt the injury in the heated moments. Everywhere, there were fellow comrades, innocent civilians, and cherished friends crying in agony or lying dead on the streets. He remembered firing his phase disruptor rifle at the skies in a vain attempt to shoot down one of the screaming raiders when his anti-air battery with its defense net emplacement was destroyed by direct impact from a micro-photon torpedo.
When two of the attacking vessels crashed-landed somewhere in the village in the midst of the chaos, he remembered being ordered by the highest ranking surviving member of the platoon to find the wreckage, search for its pilots, and eradicate the threat by any means necessary. He remembered spotting one of the Maquis terrorists fleeing down a side street and breaking into a studio in an attempt to get away from the crash site and the pursuing soldiers. He vividly recalled firing at the vicious human male and warding him off, saving a handful of hiding children from what would have been a terrible death, even if he couldn’t help their slain art teacher.
But the only thing he didn’t remember was killing that human, who was later positively identified as Xavier Wallace, one of the key leaders of the cell behind the attack and a right hand man to the infamous terrorist Okon Gale.
Because he hadn’t. He was certain of it. If there was one thing a Cardassian mind was known for, it was its eidetic attention to detail--and in this case--the lack of such details. The only certain thing he knew was that sometime after he lost track of Wallace, Wallace wound up dead at the base of the former cathedral. Whatever happened to him between seeing him running away and search teams finding him dead was a mystery. No one claimed responsibility and honor for putting an end to him.
When the vague rumour began to spread among the survivors that he had personally killed Wallace, he ignored it. He ignored it so long that it became an indisputable fact among the common people. When he finally told his superiors and soldiers around him that he hadn’t dealt the killing blow to the Maquis captain, that he didn’t even manage to chase after the man because he stopped to secure civvies, it was too late. They didn’t believe him. No, they continued to shower him with medals, praising him beyond belief. Journalists conducted long interviews with him asking of his accomplishments and selfless devotion to the Cardassian Union, and writers continued to preach his heroics that became infinitely more fictional while the events that truly unfolded haunted him.
He wasn’t a hero. He didn’t feel like a hero. He was no Gul Minok nor Tret Akleen. He was only a small, insignificant man against the backdrop of history.
The only thing he truly did was his duty, arguably so at that.